


I've Waited Oh So Long

by Boossuet



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Gotham (TV)
Genre: All different versions of them, Happy Ending, M/M, Mad Hatter - Freeform, Nursery Rhymes, Past Lives, Rhymes, Scarecrow - Freeform, Soulmates, There's a couple death references, one underage reference, poetic-ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2018-08-17
Packaged: 2019-06-28 22:43:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15716598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boossuet/pseuds/Boossuet
Summary: Every time they meet they’re the same. Every time they meet they’re different. There’s always a Scarecrow. There’s always a Mad Hatter. There’s always a Bat.





	I've Waited Oh So Long

_Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!_

This is how it starts. With fear. With Alice.

_How I wonder what you’re at!_

Love conquers hate but what conquers fear?

_Up above the world you fly,_

Obsession and love go hand in hand.

_Like a tea tray in the sky._

He never wanted to hurt anybody.

_Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!_

Always an Alice, never a Scarecrow.

_How I wonder what you’re at!_

Ichabod will ride again.

 

 

_Plotting how he may seduce thee also from obedience, that with him, bereav’d of happiness thou may’st partake His punishment._

They take opposite sides. Pulled apart by fate. Yanked into the air as the city descends into chaos. Spared by cruelty. Protected by abuse. Disturbed by gentleness. Infected by the cure.

There’s a monster inside him and you and him. You and him and you.

A sickening black fog. Cover the church tops and choke your eyes and throat.

I am a ghost in the eyes of God.

Brilliance.

Fear.

There was no God. Only Scarecrow.

Shut the static out.

A sacrifice. A victim. A worshipper.

He is like petrichor. Drink him in nice and cool until there’s nothing left and it’s just you two all alone again drink and drink you greedy boy.

‘ _It’s okay, my dear. This is a circular story.’_  

Leave him with nothing but straw and strike a match. Laugh and sob and dance and drink some more as the flames and screams flicker out in unison.

Hatter drowns in the tea. Scarecrow burns in the wildfires.

_Eternal misery._

 

_“Begin at the beginning,” the King said, very gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”_

Rhymes are flowing out of Scarecrow like rotten honey. First and last. It’s unnatural. It belongs to Hatter. He would kill him if he could.

Take a stick and knock it off, pop! Goes the weasel.

Would not, could not.

 _Curiouser and curiouser! Cried Alice_.

Every ‘will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you,’ answered with a ‘would not, could not, would not, could not.’

He would if he could. There is no nursery rhyme to express how he feels. Childish rhymes leave no room for lust.

Hickory dickory dock, the mouse ran up the clock.

Fight like an old married couple. Dream the future.

Never old. Never married. Hardly a couple.

Scarecrow drowns in the tea. Hatter burns in the wildfires.

Two little Indians foolin’ with a gun. One shot t’other and then there was one.

Perhaps he’s the Dormouse instead of the March Hare.

Ashes! Ashes! We all fall down.

 

 

_“I can’t go back to yesterday – because I was a different person then.”_

Hatter doesn’t hear voices. He loves his sister. He kills his sister. Always an Alice, never a Scarecrow.

Scarecrow is younger. Too young when they meet. Hatter doesn’t care. Just right when they’re free.

A madman brings them together, cheers them on, then quickly makes his exeunt.

A cruel and crazy laugh. Fear is joyless but euphoric. Your mind is not your own.

If you could be a dead guy, what kind of dead guy would you be?

They never needed him. He was always just background noise compared to the cacophony of voices and crows. Wind through corn and the kettle boiling. Abuse and broken bones and them.  

Hatter can’t force anybody to do anything they wouldn’t want to.

He tenses up, just waiting for it.

Sneaky, sensual, rich.

There is nothing Scarecrow won’t do.

An eternity of soul, swimming, fruit. 

Getting worse and worse. Drying up.

Like the rabbit he fled when the second madman made his deal.

There is one thing Scarecrow won’t do.

They never needed the madman.

A midnight march to hell.

They need the madman.

Hell is here.

 

The last time is different. There is no Scarecrow. There is no Mad Hatter. No crows, no rhymes, no corn, no fear, no Bat, no hat, no being torn apart in a sewer or locked in a padded cell to rot. Alice remains in her book. The scarecrow doesn’t leave the field.

Georgia your unholy son is whole.

Wonderland stays on the shelf.

Jonathan Crane is here right now.

There’s just Jervis Tetch.

And no one else.

**Author's Note:**

> There's a lot of Dave Malloy references in this on top of the normal Lewis Carroll ones, along with one Paradise Lost one whOOPS!! 
> 
> Also pls leave comments or come scream at me about this fic on tumblr at idreamofjoly !!


End file.
